Photograph courtesy of the Old Rock House
Del Yeah! A One-Day Bluegrass Festival
September 1
5 p.m. - midnight
$12-$22 in advance,
$15-$30 day of the show
1200 S. Seventh, 314-588-0505
Because it’s roots music, and because its roots stretch way, way back—to 19th-century Appalachia, and to the even older Celtic cultures that Scotch-Irish immigrants brought with them to America—bluegrass seems like it’s been around forever. But the term didn’t even exist till the mid–20th century, when Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys (Monroe’s from Kentucky), got big on the country-western circuit. Del McCoury made his professional debut in 1963 playing rhythm guitar with Monroe at the Grand Ole Opry, which makes him a living link between first- and second-generation bluegrass. He’s also a link between bluegrass and newgrass—and pretty much every other musical genre. Elvis Costello and Phish are huge fans; McCoury’s also collaborated with Tom Petty, Steve Earle, and New Orleans’ Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Though McCoury marked some time as a younger man in logging camps, construction sites, and nuclear power plants while playing music on the weekends, finally, at 73, he can just tour; he gigs continually with a band that includes his two sons, Ronnie (mandolin) and Rob (banjo). This month, he comes to the Old Rock House with a passel of younger bands that are regulars at his namesake DelFest, including the Emmitt-Nershi Band, The Infamous Stringdusters, Mountain Sprout, The Hatrick, Cumberland Gap, and Elemental Shakedown, all of them bearing—it’s almost unavoidable!—the influence of McCoury’s traditional yet offbeat brand of high lonesome.
